126 The hish Nahiralist. Ma5v 



T. Johnson, M'Ardle, ]M'^Veene3^ and Scharff were despatched 

 to Berehaven to spend a week in making both terrestrial and 

 marine collections. A profitable time was spent, and the 

 groups studied included, in botan}-, Algae, Fungi, Lichens, 

 Hepatics, Mosses, and Phanerogams ; and in zoology many 

 groups of marine invertebrates, Insects, Spiders, land and 

 fresh-water Mollusca, and fresh-water Sponges. Meanw^hile, 

 individual research was encouraged. The first grant given 

 was made to Rev. W. F. Johnson, to assist him in studying 

 the beetles of Donegal, a district hitherto little worked in that 

 group ; and within the first year the districts around Newry, 

 Cavan, Roundstone, and Killarney received attention from 

 either zoologists or botanists. In 1894 another joint expedition 

 was organized. The little known Dingle Promontory was the 

 district selected, and the party consisted of Halbert, M'Ardle,. 

 M'Weenej', and Scharff. This was the last general expedition 

 despatched by the Committee. By this time the various groups 

 of the flora and fauna had fallen into some kind of order as 

 regards our knowledge of them ; and henceforward we find 

 the Committee: concentrating its funds on certain definite 

 groups, with a view^ to getting them worked out and published. 

 From the first the large order of Beetles received attention- 

 About 1,000 species were on record Avhen W. F. Johnson 

 commenced his study of them in 1887. Joined by J. N. 

 Halbert, and steadily backed bj' the Committee through the 

 nineties, rapid progress was made. Johnson worked, various 

 northern counties — Louth, Armagh, Down, Antrim, Donegal, 

 Sligo — while the areas worked by Halbert included 

 various spots in Kerry and Cork, the Blackwater, Suir, and 

 Barrow valleys, Limerick, Wexford coast and interior, the 

 Westmeath lakes, Lough Ree, the Killeries, Roundstone,. 

 Woodford, Sligo, the Wicklow and Mourne Mountains, and 

 Lough Neagh. This continued efibrt, reinforced b}^ the aid of 

 a number of other collectors, notably C W. Buckle, resulted 

 in the publication in 1902 of Johnson and Halbert's well-known 

 "List of the Beetles of Ireland," in which 1,630 species are 

 recorded from this country, with notes on their distribution 

 occupying nearly 300 octavo pages of the Academy's 

 Proceedi7igs. Another group which has been steadily worked 

 up under the Committee's auspices is the Hepatics. David 



